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The Plane Giving the F-35 a Run for Its Money
- WalterBright 11y ago> but had the plane been flying as low and slow as older generations of attack planes did, the crew might’ve realized their error simply by looking down at the ground. There are a lot of WW2 incidents of friendly fire casualties from ground attack aircraft, both from aircraft attacking their own guys to aircraft being downed from anti-aircraft fire from their own side. This happened to all sides in WW2.
- venomsnake 11y agoAlso WWII had 4 major theaters, probably 100 000 000 troops mobilized or deployed, and production lines for armor and planes that would make Henry Ford gawk. The scale guaranteed that the friendly fire will occur often.
- llukas 11y agoNot scale but lack of forward airforce liaison officers. Germans didn't have the same problem.
- vlehto 11y agoYeah. It's not really old vs. new in the first place. It's close air support vs. strategic bombing. Close air support happens from low altitude, bombing from high altitude.
- Havoc 11y agoThats a bit like eating soup with a fork and concluding the fork is broken.
- eru 11y agoThe fork is the wrong tool.
- hyperion2010 11y agoYou have to give the guys the right tool for the job. The guys are telling you that the F-35 is the wrong tool for the job. "Yes, keep using that drill to install those nails because otherwise the taxpayers will have our asses."
- lispm 11y agoA different plane would not have helped winning Afghanistan. suffering might have been even longer. The expectation to win there is an illusion. Looking for technological solutions - low or high tech - is just more of the same misguided thinking. The case is lost in a totally different way - it's not technology.
- eru 11y agoAt least they could have made their mistakes cheaper.
- 6d0debc071 11y agoIf you make your mistakes cheaper, you may be inclined to keep making them for longer.
- venomsnake 11y agoIf someone makes same mistake twice - you relieve him of duty. That is as old principle as they come. Things get done by people that do different mistakes every time. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-failure/309148/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-...
- venomsnake 11y agoEverything is winnable. But the pentagon is mostly a state/corporate subsidy program with some military capabilities as a side effect. US hasn't been in a war they HAVE to win since WWII (and even then continental US was pretty safe) so the institutional knowledge that was bought with blood is soon forgotten. Afghanistan was not won, because there was never a criteria for winning towards which the military and the state department to work. And the fact that US has the habit of cooperating with the wrong people in third world countries, makes things worse. If the US had courts in Afghanistan in which to try corruption, Afghanistan would be a better country now.
- emp_zealoth 11y ago
- ckozlowski 11y agoThere was a fantastic article and analysis I read some weeks ago that addressed this issue, and I'm trying desperately to find it. However, I remember the key points, and I'll surmise them here: - The A-10's survivability is overrated. The Air Force conducted studies after both Gulf Wars and found that the A-10 was taking higher damage per sortie when compared in '91 to '03. That Iraq's air defense was in shambles didn't seem to diminish the fact that the A-10 was becoming more vulnerable to more sophisticated weapons. Technology has made cheaper weapons more effective since the 1970s in which this was designed. In a higher threat environment, the lack of sophisticated sensors, threat identification, and ECM is seen as not boding well. - The A-29 is a fantastic plane. But it's giving the A-10 a run for it's money, not the F-35. In the low-threat COIN environment, it has all of the benefits of the A-10 with none of the drawbacks. That famous cannon isn't always idea against militants in the mountains when you're worried about spraying your own troops. That the A-19 can carry small guided weapons just like the A-10 gives it capabilities where it counts. And it's half to a third of the price to purchase and maintain. So the A-10 is getting squashed from two sides: The F-35 can penetrate the high-threat environment, and provide CAS in a lethal SAM environment, while the A-29 can provide CAS/COIN against militants in a low to non-existent threat environment. There is no middle ground. It left when air defense systems gained the sophisticated tracking and accuracy that wasn't there in the 1970s and 80s. The A-10 was a fantastic plane and well designed for the time in which it was envisioned to fight. But even I agree that it's time has passed. Like the F-14, it's sad to see it go, but I think it's the right call.
- mycelium 11y agoWho cares about A-29 vs A-10? Both got shitcanned. I agree the article's title sucks. The point is that military political dysfunction managed to get rid of all ground support airplanes while mumbling "F-35" when anybody asked about ground support.
- pooper 11y agoIs there much appetite for ground based forward operation without guaranteed aerial supremacy? Ground support planes would be nice but getting and maintaining aerial control is what prevents war, at least it used to be the case. What has changed?
- hyperion2010 11y agoThe real kicker for me was the cost per hour for flying these. 600 bucks. Roughly 2 orders of magnitude less than a 'modern' plane.
- yxhuvud 11y agoThe numbers I can find for operating JAS Gripen is roughly $4700, so there are some modern planes that are only one magnitude cheaper. However, many tend to not prioritize operating costs very high.
- mcv 11y agoThe Gripen is specifically designed for cost effectiveness. If you want a modern jet fighter with the most bang for your buck, the Gripen is the most obvious choice. If money is not an issue, there are plenty of better jets available.
- VLM 11y agoIts important to note the air force number is something like unit budget divided by number of hours flown divided by number of planes, so its fairly realistic, but the specifically named manufacturer provided cost estimate is something like gas and oil and scheduled maint assuming nothing ever breaks and there's no enemy action and things wear out according to the blueprints. Also it costs the same to feed a pilot of any aircraft, ditto ATC and commo guys and all the rear echelon folks, although none of those costs were included in the mfgrs estimate. No matter how badly the numbers are fudged its probably still one order of magnitude cheaper, perhaps a little more.
- dingaling 11y agoWW2 era? What a load of rubbish, just because it has a propellor. The basic Tucano first flew in 1980. By the same yardstick I assume Vice thinks a helicopter is da Vinci era? ~~ The turboprop ( geared propellor driven by a jet engine ) is still the most efficient means of aviation propulsion devised; it surpassed internal-combustion engines in efficiency in the early 1960s, with the Turboméca Astazou, and continued to improve. Turboprops fall-off in efficiency with altitude and speed, but below around 20,000 ft and 400 kts they're the champions.
- joonoro 11y agoI was wondering the same thing. The first thing I did was look up the Tucano on Wikipedia and I couldn't find anything about WW2.
- avar 11y agoIt's obviously mostly a linkbait title, but to be fair to it it's a reference to most WWII planes using propellers, as opposed to the jet planes of today. They're not claiming the Tucano was literally designed in the 40s.
- mikeash 11y agoThe title is claiming exactly that. If it's not what they meant then they should have chosen a better title.
- brianwawok 11y agoClickbaits suck, but they work. Up to mods to filter them
- benihana 11y agoYeah just check out that picture of the clearly WW2 era all glass cockpit. It has a freaking digital attitude indicator!
- roosterjm2k2 11y ago
- kjjw 11y agoA terrible article entirely predicated on anecdotal evidence. I have no doubt that most of the 'technologically advanced' equipment Americans put into and will put into wars will ultimately fail to live up to expectations. But let's give another anecdote about the A10. In Iraq, the A10, just like the B52 in Afghanistan, was responsible for killing two truck loads of British soldiers. Its pilot mistook the luminous arrow signs that indicated friendly forces for missile systems. In Afghanistan, an American Apache mowed down a platoon of British troops after being called in as air support and mistaking the troops for the enemy. The thing that links all these incidences is not low or high tech but the American military. Clearly its pilots, soldiers, staff are not trained properly. Just a bunch of reckless idiots. Much like the government that sent them.
- varjag 11y agoAs long as wars are fought by humans, friendly fire incidents are going to happen. No amount of training will eradicate it.
- eru 11y agoMore training will reduce it.
- djrogers 11y ago> * The thing that links all these incidences is not low or high tech but the American military. Clearly its pilots, soldiers, staff are not trained properly. No, the thing that links them all is war - it's incredibly messy and people have been killing the wrong people in wars for as long as men have been fighting.
- cmdkeen 11y agoWhilst you are correct, and every conflict has blue on blue engagements, the US military have a very bad reputation for being bloody dangerous to their allies. Mission videos that do emerge of incidents where US aircraft, helicopters and drones end up engaging friendly or non-hostile targets commonly show a marked desire to engage the enemy and view any and all information coming in as confirming that initial prejudice. I'm not saying this applies to all US military personnel or that other militaries do not have problems.
- ordbajsare 11y agoWar in Afghanistan? I seem to miss the formal declaration of war by congress as required by the constitution.
- 13thLetter 11y agoHappily, I'm here to help! This is what you missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit... Anything else you need?
- petewailes 11y agoThere's something similar in the world of jet aircraft too. The Textron AirLand Scorpion, built from off the shelf parts, designed to take a whole bunch of ordinary weapons systems, went from design to flying at air shows inside 3 years, without massive costs. It's a subsonic, twin jet plane with a stall speed around 100 knots, which costs ~$20m. It's not remotely clever compared to the Eurofighter, Sukhoi Su-XX jets or similar recent generation multi-role aircraft, but for low speed engagement with flexible hardpoints and easy maintenance, it's hard to find many competitors. Which is weird, given the nature of most aerial combat roles for the past 15 years.
- josefresco 11y agoI thought of these fighters as well. Governments don't buy these because they don't want a 9/10 fighter. They'd rather buy a decades old 10/10 fighter even though they'll never need (and probably can't pay for) that extra 1/10.
- chinathrow 11y agoI would love to see the content labelled as "sponsored by Embraer" or the likes.
- sanoli 11y agoReally? You really think Embraer would go to Vice for its PR?
- strictnein 11y agoTheir PR dept could very well have floated this story all over the place and Vice is the one that took the bait.
- chinathrow 11y agoYes, knowing how PR spins work in the defense industry, this is very much likely the case.
- outworlder 11y agoI would too, except that the article tries very hard to not mention "Embraer". Instead, it lists the manufacturer as being "Sierra Nevada Corporation".
- josefresco 11y ago"The Hornet’s cost per flight hour? $25,000 to $30,000, according to official Navy figures. It’s estimated the F-35 costs anywhere between $31,900 to $38,400 per hour to fly." So the F-35's lower hourly rate is almost the same as the Hornet's upper rate? Doesn't seem like that much of a deal.
- sintaxi 11y agoThe Hornet is an actual Jet and therefore those costs are real. The F-35 estimates are the most conservative that are legally defensible but will almost certainly much greater than that once actually in service.
- smegel 11y agoHell, lets scrap them all for a fleet of modern drones supported by advanced AI.
- mrmondo 11y agoTalk about clickbate, it's a shame to see this up voted on HN.
- walshemj 11y agoThe blue on blue in Afghanistan mentioned in the first para was caused by the GPS resetting its self (to the current location) when the batteries where changed. Which is why the SF team unfortunately called the strike on them selves - this happened a couple of times I belive.
- ElectricPenguin 11y agoThis is the equivalent to saying that a cigarette boat could get a couple shots off in a fight with a battleship because of it's maneuverability and speed. Well yes that may be true. However, it's more likely a battleship would sink a cigarette boat with a precision guided weapon a second after it becomes visible on the horizon.
- th0waway 11y agoahhh, but put a little effort into building the cigarette boat and the response envelope is drastically small, small enough that a swarm of cheap boats could gut a battleship.
- johngalt 11y agoI can certainly buy the narrative that the military is spending too much money or designing weapons for the 'last war'. Yet I have a nagging suspicion that this is like the business users complaining that IT won't just buy everyone $200 laptops to save money. Devil's advocate: what could the Airforce's rationale be? I hate to write off the professionals so quickly. If you need a turboprop attack plane to deal with a specific threat, you can fast track something cheaply because it's a widely known/used technology. The converse isn't true. You can't go back and decide you need a top tier $trillion fighter in a month. Loiter time is important. Yet most military engagements in history are decided by speed and firepower.
- erobbins 11y agoThe problem is that all the employees are just playing minesweeper, a $3k macbook pro running windows in a VM is the wrong tool for the job. $200 notebooks are perfect.
- dkrich 11y ago"A crew operating a high-tech fighter plane made a terrible mistake" -> "Had the crew been close enough to the ground to see their enemies, the mistake may have been avoided" -> "A-10's require pilots to be close to their enemies" -> "A-10's and planes that rely on dated technology are superior to those that utilize the latest and greatest weaponry." This argument is useless without determining how many incidents like the example described at the beginning of the article occur, whether they could be avoided with an older plane, and whether the cost of the mistakes made by the newer planes outweighs the advantages they provide.
- walshemj 11y agoNot in this case it was a sw issue on the GPS that caused this problem.
- moron4hire 11y agoQuantity has a quality all its own.
- Quanticles 11y agoMy biggest concern about F-35's is how quickly they can be made in wartime situations. They have so many sophisticated instruments... can they really be mass produced? In WW2, Germany had the best tanks, but the Soviets and the Americans overwhelmed them with numbers. You can say that WW2 is an old war, but if you're wrong do we really have a reliable plane that we can mass produce anymore?
- tacticus 11y agothat germany had the best tanks is a bit inaccurate. The t-34 was better than almost everything else out there when it came out. easily outclassing common german tanks. the improved models could compete with the tiger and panthers (though there were few of these) though the big issues with the tiger and panther was the horrible maintenance issues.
- greedo 11y agoIn modern, high-intensity warfare, you fight with what you have. The days of producing a Liberty ship a day are way past our industrial capability, and the technology in the F-35 and fighters of its caliber limit the ability to mass produce in anything close to WW2 quantities.
- Quanticles 11y agoYou could say that about the initial stage of the war, but can you maintain an occupying force for years against a sophisticated country? In that case, we would eventually run out of F-35's due to sabotage or maintenance issues. This idea that the only thing that matters is what you already have creates a race - can you crush resistance before those who are resisting realize that you have limited long-term capability?
- greedo 11y agoThe weapons used in an occupation are vastly different than what you use to initially defeat an opponent. Most occupations are faced with insurgencies equipped with small arms, not 5th generation aircraft. In Iraq, we had time to spool up production of MRAPs to counter IEDs, and were pretty quick to deploy equipment that would aid in COIN warfare. But MRAPs would be shit in a real war against a peer grade opponent; too heavy, too slow, confined to roads, poor overall performance.
- megaman22 11y agoFor close-air-support (which the Air Force really doesn't want to be involved in...), the most effective aircraft have often been cheap, slow, unsexy aircraft that can carry a lot of ordinance, take a lot of punishment, and get down low and slow to hit ground targets with bullets. See the Ju-87 Stuka, IL-2 Sturmovik, Douglas A-1 Skyraider, AC-47 and AC-130 gunships, and the A-10.
- Detrus 11y agoAfghans eventually withered down close Soviet air support. Soviet strategy seemed to be winning with new air and infantry tactics. Until they started losing hundreds of aircraft. If I remember correctly it was mostly heavy guns and not US Stingers that did the trick. The enemy is well aware that all they have to do is win an endurance war against an inflexible bureaucracy that bleeds money and outlast the patience of a fickle populace. This was demonstrated recently enough in Vietnam. US strategy was losing, even though they won almost every fight in both wars. It would take a lot more than this one cheap fighter to outlast the Afghans. At least body count was better this time.
- beloch 11y agoWhat I got from reading this article is the impression that it makes absolutely no sense to use the F-35 for close-air support. It is inferior in performance and far more expensive to operate than the A-29 for CAS missions. Here in Canada, politicians are dithering and dickering over whether or not to buy the F-35 now that it's looking less impressive and the weak Canadian dollar has made it far more expensive. For some inexplicable reason, the prevalent idea is that the RCAF should own and operate just one model of fighter. This idea needs to change. The reality is that Canadian planes have not engaged in air-to-air combat since the Korean war, but virtually every conflict the CF participates in requires close-air support. That mission is currently fulfilled by CF-18's. The A-29, or a similar plane, could provide superior CAS capability for far less money. Then, as an added bonus, the successor to the CF-18 would not need to be compromised for CAS, as the F-35 is. Canada could look for a pure air-superiority fighter, and buy a smaller number of them because they would not be called upon to perform CAS. The end result would be an air force that's better at it's primary roles and far cheaper, and Canadian forces (and their allies) on the ground would be far safer. Maybe I'm wrong?
- tonyarkles 11y agoI'm totally with you. The CF-18 is pretty good for Arctic sovereignty and for maintaining our NORAD commitments, but absolutely terrible for peacekeeping & observation missions. Same goes for coast guard missions. The F-35 seems like it would just be bad at all of them. Would you want to fly a sortie north of the Arctic circle in a single engine jet?!
- Ras_ 11y agoIn your opinion what makes it terrible for peacekeeping & observation? Isn't it just a matter of Canada not buying and integrating suitable armament? With Jdams and Paveways you have to go too close for early operations, but Canada still dropped 10% of bombs in Libya according to wikipedia. Sweden has a similar setup, missing proper ranged options but they were restricted to doing strictly recon in Libya. In the end I suspect that even if you had the ability, no-one besides USA(/UK/France/Germany) has the stockpiles/willingness to start throwing around cruise missiles in foreign ops. For smaller countries there's political reasoning behind doing enough but not everything you possibly could in foreign ops. Not all modern fighters have started as a multi-role, but every good fighter has ended up as one.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoMy working assumption is that military procurement has everything to do with which contractors need to get paid and very little to do with military objectives, since we don't actually have any achievable military objectives.